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Connecting the Past, Present and Future in Health Research

Workshop

Event date
Monday 18 May 2026, 9.30am to 1.30pm
Location
In-person only
ATB/057, Seebohm Rowntree Building (ATB), Campus West, University of York (Map)
Audience
Open to staff, students (postgraduate researchers only)
Admission
Free admission, booking required

Event details

The determinants of disease are economic and social, and not simply biological and environmental. We know that tackling disease requires collaboration and trust between policy makers, scientists, medical practitioners and the public. Past experiences at the individual, organisational and community level can shape contemporary responses and attitudes towards disease control in significant ways. Priorities in public health in the present are often key in prompting new analyses of what happened in the past. One good example is current concern surrounding the impact of climate change on health. This has prompted new historical studies of the relationship between environmental change and disease in the past.

Workshop Aims

The aim of this workshop is to foster conversation between scholars who study past measures to tackle disease and the history of disease incidence, and those who are working on health-related research and disease control in the present. We are particularly interested in exploring the relationship between the environment and health, with a focus on infectious and neglected diseases, including the ways in which disease/environment relations were imagined in the past, the role of various organisations in promoting research priorities and new conceptions of disease, and urban versus rural health challenges.

Organisers: Sabine Clarke (History) and Ciara Loughrey (HYMS).

Speakers

Speakers include: Mobeen Hussain (History), Henry Fell (Archaeology), Alex Medcalf (History), David Orton (Archaeology), Clive McKimmie (HYMS), James Hewitson (Biology), Shoumit Dey (HYMS), Dan Jeffares (Biology), Karen Hogg and Rebecca Wiggins.

Please register using this form by the 12th May.